Flibbertigibbet!

Now that it's come to my attention that an unsavory character from my past has found my journal and is attempting to make contact again, I unfortunately have to make this journal friends only. Thanks a lot, asshole. Past entries will remain public until I am un-lazy enough to convert them.

To the loser: I'm not joking when I tell you to leave me the fuck alone. I'm not playing hard to get. You really repulse me. This is the last communication I will ever extend to you, so do us both a favor and get a life.

I've lost almost an entire week to being sick. What the hell. I'm still not all better yet, but I'm well enough to make it to school to get my Merit stuff finished and exhibited. I think.

Here's a quick rundown of events since my last entry...

Tuesday
- made it to class (and felt like crap) but persevered through the actual classwork, which wasn't very strenuous
- walked to Hark's to get some ice cream to help my extremely painful throat
- tried to eat said ice cream during class slides but had a sudden fit of death
- left class early and collapsed on my bed in misery
- got driven to the ER by Sarah
- was given some antibiotics by a nice doctor lady

Wednesday
- continued being miserable and in pain
- couldn't sleep because of nightmares and crap in throat
- missed Comic 3
- was basically useless

Thursday
- still miserable and in pain but slightly less so
- tried to get a little comic work done but failed
- missed Drawing 2
- started sleeping a hell of a lot
- had my appetite return only to be unable to eat

Friday
- actually made it to History of Comics
- picked up some extra medication Dad got for me from Walgreens (had to take the bus...during heavy snowfall...which kind of sucked)
- drugged myself and slept all day

Saturday
- woke up feeling surprisingly chipper but not 100% better
- hacked up in the shower what looked like a bit of lung

I still have a nasty cough, but the pain in my throat has been mostly tamed, which I think is thanks to the super-strong antibiotics Dad got me. The ones the ER gave me were kind of weak.

So...I think I'm actually better this time, but I need to make sure I keep going easy on myself until I'm sure it's all out of my system. No more relapses for me. That was damned horrifying. This is the sickest I've been in years and years. I'm glad the worst of it is over now, though.

Now to finally finish inking. I would've been done already if not for this damn...THING. Damn you, thing!

I'm getting close to normal now. Another difficult night, but it was due to good old-fashioned insomnia this time, not agony. Right now, the worst thing I'm having to deal with is a throat that feels like sandpaper. Makes breathing not-fun. My sinuses aren't happy, either, but they're not being too difficult. Looks like I can actually make class today.

What the hell kind of bizarro, post-modern disease did I catch, anyway? First, it made me all achey, then it felt like the Flu (minus the puking bit,) and now it feels like a screwed-up sinus infection. Make up your mind, whatever the hell you are! I think if I went to the doctor, his/her/its head would explode just trying to figure out what I caught. It would be just my luck to catch two things at once.

I'm gonna have Big Bird feet in an hour. Lucky day!

Yes, I'm definitely sick. Last night was one of the most miserable times I've had trying to get to sleep ever. It took two hours to get to sleep at first. I then woke up at 4:30 in the morning and took another three hours before I could get to sleep after that. I ended up having to skip History of Animation for the sake of my health. I hated doing it, but it was necessary. I felt much better after getting a few more hours this morning. I'm still not All Better, but I'm better off than yesterday, and that's good enough for me.

Getting to sleep last night was nigh impossible. Either I was too hot (from fever) or too cold (from the cold air coming in from outside). Or I just hurt too much from whatever the hell has afflicted me. (I'm still mystified.) Every single part of me was aching. It was terrible. The best I could do was scarf down ibueprofen and lie very still so that I would eventually pass out.

Okay. Enough whining.

I have work to do today. I'm going to roll up my sleeves and finish up the inking on my comic so that I can scan it for tonight. I have to make some fake feet, too. That should take all of an hour.

If I can just make it through this one week, things should get a lot easier. Please, please, please.

Shit. I think I'm sick.

I woke up this morning, and it felt like I'd been hit by a truck. I wrote this off as the mildly strenuous workout I had on Friday evening with my EyeToy. I was a bit sore yesterday, but nothing bad. So I alleviated the soreness as best I could and continued on my day. Things were less than horrible for a few hours, but I eventually began to really wind down and feel the crap my body was going through. I feel lightheaded and a bit dizzy now, and I have a splitting headache. I also think I'm starting to get a fever. A low one, but I still feel warm.

So I reiterate. Shit. I think I'm sick.

I'll just try to get to bed super early tonight. (I've put a cap of 8:30 PM on my comic work activities so that I can get in bed by 9.) Hopefully, I won't feel this horrible tomorrow morning so that I can make it to History of Animation. I'll feel bad if I miss my cartoons.

Well, I guess I'm 21 now. Time to go to sleep.

I get waayyyy too many goddamn comic ideas. Especially when I'm on stimulants to keep me awake. (I hate caffiene pills, but I hate falling asleep on my feet more. I promise myself a good night's sleep tonight.) I saw a cute little commerical for the Nintendo DS -- the one with the kid writing in window frost -- and POOF new idea. I don't even have names for the characters yet or a title, but I know I'm going to have to draw it very soon or risk going insane. I neeed to find this weird little idea door in my brain and shut it before more hoodoo comes flying out. I have to do homework, dammit! I can't spend all my time doodling. Fuck!

So the story I want to do is a supernatural romance that has probably been done before. I don't care very much if it's not terribly original. It's my new baby. As opposed to last week's baby. And yesterday's. I just hope none of these new ideas get in the way of my senior project, which I hope to be able to start in a couple of weeks. (That gets funnier every time I say it.) If I pace myself, I can probably do this one on the side. I know pretty much everything that's going to happen. I just need to bang out the specifics. Did I mention I thought of this thing two hours ago?

Semi-relatedly, I've beeen noticing patterns in my little stories, especially in the past few months. Now that they seem to be coming mostly from me and not every place else, I guess I can't help getting a little introspective. I've noticed, for one, that my super #1 main characters are always androgynous in some way, almost without fail. For a girl, many of my protagonists are male, but they're never what you could consider...manly. Not that they're fops, either. Usually. My female characters tend to be tomboys and sometimes even actual crossdressers. This says something about me, I think. I suspect it's because I feel equally male and female in a lot of ways. In the most basic, fundamental ways, I'm a girl. I have no illusions of being a man inside, but I've never been a girly girl. (Not that I've even really met many girly girls in my entire life. Not normal ones.) I'm a weird balance of both. When I was a kid, I'd put on a pretty dress and go play in the dirt and climb trees. I'd want the crappy Barbie toy AND the mini Hot Wheels toy in my Happy Meal. (Barbie drag racing is the sport of kings.) I'm still that way. I wear cute underwear but scratch my ass in public. I shave under my arms but not my legs. (...Once you've read it, you can't un-read it.) And as much as I would like to think this is totally unique and cool, I suspect it's more of a product of growing up in the 90s than anything.

Whoa. Sudden deja-vu attack. Okay, it's gone.

There's also my thing for cities and the country. I respond equally to symbols of urban development (concrete, cramped apartment buildings, chain link fences, etc.) and nature (leaves, dirt paths, twigs, a big bright moon, etc.) This is much easier to explain. I grew up in Memphis, a city filled with trees and surrounded by forest. And I was raised by a mom who dragged me out to SCA events on a regular basis when I was young, which were usually held deep in the middle of nowhere. In the woods. Oddly enough, suburbs give me the creeps. Everything looks the same. That's not right.

I need to go hiking. Damn.

But enough blabbering. Time to ink! Fear me, Bristol! Raarrrgh!

I just ordered a pizza on the Internet. ON THE INTERNET! I'm so cool.

My head is spinning right now. And this time it's not from frustration and lack of sleep, at least not on their own. All of a sudden, I'm very concerned about getting my internship this coming summer. I've been thinking about it since last semester, but I really need to start actively looking. I know that I'm pretty much guaranteed an internship with Erik if I want it, but I want to explore other options. Besides, I can have more than one before I graduate.

I'm accruing a list of people, not just companies, to contact about possible internships. Some artists would be totally happy to have some geeky girl spotting their blacks and answering their phone. It's a matter of finding them. So far, I'm thinking of contacting Jason Lutes, James Stern, Art Spiegelman (total longshot), Jamie Hernandez, Neil Gaiman (probably not, but worth a try), Richard Starkins, Craig Thompson, and Derek Kirk Kim. I'm guessing I probably won't get anything out of these guys, but I figure it couldn't hurt to ask around. Thanks goes to Rana for kicking my ass a bit. At least I have the papers to send me on my way.

And I still have coloring and homework! GAH!

I ate three free strawberries today. Some girl just walked up to me and gave them to me. That was great. There was a free croissant left in a bag on the big art table in the studios, too. These two things combines = free dinner. Yeah. Strawberries are kind of Valentine's-ish, right?

Trying to get my act together by tomorrow. One last little computer break before I dive headfirst into my "daily" drawings. Whenever I'm supposed to do something every day for a class, I inevitably forget day after day until I have to catch up with my missed work in some huge marathon session. When will I learn? Probably never.

Oh, and to all my LJ friends -- especially those of you who are friends-only...which is quite a lot of you -- I'm going to be changing my username very, very soon. Hopefully within the week. I will be changing it to "fnicket," as my first choice and most any variances have already been claimed. I changed the "s" to an "f" because in Ye Olden Tymes, the two letters were interchangable. Plus, it sounds kind of cute. So don't freak out when you see "fnicket" on your list. It's just little ol' me.

Things I want to do today:
1. Read a LOT of Men of Tomorrow. Must catch up on my History of Comics class readings!
2. Do some sketching. Lots of new things in my head since yesterday.
3. Ink as much as I can.
4. Try to finish catching up in Drawing for Discovery.

To do all this, I might have to skip a night of sleep, or at least not get very much. Probably not a good idea, but the sacrifice might be worth it if I could just finish catching up this little last bit.

P.S. I'm in love with Patrick Woodroffe.

Today was kind of a bust, work-wise, but I did get a few little things done. I bought a bunch of comics, which was fun. I ate a falafel sandwich AND a free taco...not all in the same meal. I talked with Erik a bit and learned some interesting things that Deb has been calling me behind my back. Lovely. I hate when my worst suspicions about my supposed friends are confirmed like that. Not that I can say I'm very broken up about it...

I'm just going to call today a free day. I'll get to bed soon and start tomorrow fresh. What with all the crap flying around lately -- most of which is over stupid shit -- and the amount of work I have to complete, I'm pretty stressed and kind of need some downtime on occasion. Plus, I'm taking on some emotional baggage from my friend Jesse, who's pretty upset about drama of his own. He won't tell me what (for his own reasons,) but I've been trying to be good to him about it. What the hell is wrong with people? I don't get why people play these stupid mind games with each other. Do they get off on it or something?

I'm about ready to tell the rest of the world to fuck off for a few weeks so I can get my school life in order. I can't take this all at once. It's just too much.

I've been putting off saying anything to this effect for a while now, hoping everything would just blow over and I could get all this crap out of my head. But I can't deny it anymore. Heh. That makes me sound like a douche, doesn't it?

( A little whining. Only click if you feel like reading it. I won't inflict it upon you against your will. )

First, the bad. My legs hurt. And my back. Too much standing, then running, then walking. But I digress. (I like saying that.)

Dream On, Silly Dreamer was great. I was surprised at how packed the theater was. Free movie, I guess. I didn't have to wait in line because Gwen showed up with an extra ticket. Cool. We had to sit in the neck-craning section at the front, but at least we got seats. The show was both funny and sad, and everyone there (that I could tell) was into it. There was an amazing variety of ages there. Young kids, younger than me, to the very old and gray. Speaks well of Disney's former influence, I think. I nearly cried when all the interviewees were talking about how heartbroken they were that they were being laid off so the executives could swarm all over the animation department. (All sensationalism aside, that's pretty much what happened.) Brought back a lot of the outrage I felt when I heard the news two years ago. What the fuck, people. I ask you. What the fuck.

AND I finally got some scripts from C.B. today. They're previously published, of course, but at this point, I'm not picky. Right now, I'm aiming for some sort of internship, and this is a good way to impress them. Take a published script and draw it better than the person who did the actual book. I want to do a couple of pages of the New Runaways #1, I think. Maybe I should have a look at the published book. Heh. I'm finally going on a comic run this Saturday, so I'll do it then. I bought the Hero mini-series collection today -- only 10 bucks! -- to hold me until then. After a while of no new comics, I start to twitch. Sequential art is a cruel mistress.

All the homework I have to do tonight is reading. Granted, I'm a little behind, but I'm catching up. Thank god Frenchy isn't one for pop quizzes...

I had donuts for dinner, too. Donuts for Dinner would make a great band name. Whee.

I put in an entry to the MCAD valentine contest. I got it in just in time, too. The first prize is an iPod shuffle, which I don't really want. I figure if by some weird chance I did win it, I'd play with it for a little bit, and then sell it and buy myself something cool. I already have an MP3 player...which I need to recharge and start using again, actually...

But anyway. The picture.

( Awwwww... )

This is the "super rushed because the deadine is five minutes away" color job. I didn't want anything fancy, anyway, and it serves. I'm satisfied with the color choices for now. I'll probably fiddle with it some more later. It should have SOMETHING of a background... I don't do enough backgrounds in my illustrations. It suspect it's a symptom of my on-going stuggle with proper backgrounds in my comics. Damn them.

Speaking of comics, I'm finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel concerning my long-haul project that I started last semester. In a couple of weeks, I should have the inking pretty much done, providing my other classes don't interfere too much. I hope it'll look nice. It's given me quite a bit of brush and nib practice, which I needed. I'm finally starting to appreciate all the things nibs can do.

I just hope it all comes out looking great so I have a chance at that Merit Scholarship. An extra $3,000 would be mighty fine.

Now to relax a bit before I head of to the jungle that is Drawing 2. We get to use paint today. Always an adventure, that class.

I swear to god, my Drawing for Discovery teacher isn't all there. It kind of ticks me off that she thinks I can't handle her projects, that they're "too complicated" for me, meaning I'm just trying to do something well instead of wimping out and pulling drawings out of my butt. Well, maybe I could handle these projects a bit better if you wouldn't give us a million things to do at the same time. Have some focus, woman!

Eh. I'll show her. As much as her attitude irks me, it just gives me more incentive to do totally bad-ass stuff in that class. I will not be marginalized!

On a happier note, I'm going to go see a super awesome documentary on Thursday evening about the axing of the 2D animation department at Disney, called Dream On, Silly Dreamer. It's made by MCAD alumni Dan Lund, who was a special effects animator at Disney for several years until he got the boot along with everyone else. (For an example of his work, he did the avalanche scene in Mulan. Good stuff.) It's a free special offer because Dan loves us so much. If I like it enough, maybe I'll see it twice. At least I have an excuse to go downtown. I haven't ventured more than a few blocks from MCAD (except for grocery and special supply trips) since I got back. I miss going places and doing things.

I'm sure it'll be good. His last documentary, Death Becomes Them, was really great, so I have confidence in his abilities. I doubt this one will have all the dancing skeletons, though. These sort of sacrifices must be made, I suppose.

I just went through my old-as-sin AOL e-mail account and SPAM-proofed it as much as possible. Maybe that will make it usable again.

Bitching about roommates, ahoy! It's a bit long, but oh-so-cathartic...

( Why do I put up with this, again? Oh, yeah. Because it's cheap. )

I feel a little better now. I guess I should go draw. Yes. Drawing good.

I've lost the left half of my vision. It's really disorienting and scary. This happened last week during the beginning of Drawing 2. It went away after about an hour, and I thought it would be a one-time thing. Now that it's happening again, I'm wondering if I should look into visiting a doctor. The two big problems with that are 1) finding the time to make an appointment and 2) paying for it. I don't know if I'm covered by any sort of insurance out here, and I can't afford to pay for this out-of-pocket. I need that money for FOOD.

It's really strange. It'll start as a small static-y spot just below and to the left of my center of vision, slowly expand until it encompasses the whole of my left side, fall back to peripheral vision, and then fade out of sight. This is accompanied by sharp, jabbing pains in the back of my skull, on the right side, which corresponds with the alignment of the sight loss. My best guess as to what might be causing this is a repeated lack of sleep, combined with malnutrition, stimulants, and stress. This combination might be causing the blood vessels in my head to restrict enough that something backfires back there. Maybe the blood supply gets cut off? Like a small part of my brain just goes unconscious. It would explain the static. Of course, I'm nothing resembling a doctor, so this is just a wild guess.

I'm absolutely sure it's a problem with my brain and not my eyes because the affected area is the same in both eyes.

(After a bit of Googling, I came across this Wikipedia article on the occipital lobe. I'm not liking the sound of this "homonomous vision loss" one bit.)

It's just the left side that's weird. My right side is fine. Eventual permanent loss of my left side of vision would royally suck, though.

I can see a bit better now. I want to take a nap very, very badly, but I need to keep working. College is bad for your health. Seriously.

(Edit, two hours later: Food seems to help.)

I love my History of Animation class. Oh, I do, I do.